Fenestraz takes lights-to-flag victory at Pau
Sacha Fenestraz took a lights to flag victory in the second race of the 2018 European Formula 3 championship to take the championship lead.
The Renault Sport Academy driver held off attacks from Motopark’s Fabio Scherer before Scherer collided with the barriers at high speed after running over the kerbs, ending his race.
For the remainder of the race, Fenestraz was left unchallenged and finished three seconds ahead of Alex Palou.
Marcus Armstrong took the final step of the podium after an early battle to stay ahead of Ben Hingley and Enaam Ahmed.
The first safety car of the day came out early in the race when Artem Petrov and Devlin DeFrancesco collided. The pair were left stranded on track and the race was neutralised to allow marshals to clear the stricken cars.
Scherer, who had moved past Palou off the line, stayed on Fenestraz’s tail on the restart and was able to pull alongside the Carlin driver on a number of occasions. The pair made contact at the hairpin as Scherer tried a move up the inside and he fell a few tenths of a second away from Fenestraz, giving the race leader room to breath. The Motopark driver was able to close the gap once more before he hit the barriers.
Hingley took fourth, finishing just 0.3s ahead of Ahmed, with Jehan Daruvala, Julian Hanses and Ralf Aron all following close behind.
Robert Shwartzman held onto ninth ahead of Mick Schumacher.